Whereas I encourage the use of technology in the industry, I do wonder how this is going to work out for the client. After all, generally speaking, they are the ones who pay for the valuation.
Despite the much-heralded claims that property prices are increasing, I have seen just about every property down-valued in the past eight months, some cases by large amounts – hardly good value for the ones paying the valuation fees.
So how is electronic valuation going to work if the present format is flawed?
Richard F Grant wrote in these pages a short time ago that valuers are all qualified, and I applaud his stance and the expressed difference between valuers and estate agents. But these qualified professionals are unable to look at a single property and give a definitive valuation without seeking the assistance from unqualified estate agents. Some of the latter, by his own description, may have only been in the business a few weeks and have no understanding of the market other than to get as many sales as possible to line their pockets, regardless of the client. A recent TV programme highlighted what we have all known for years. Again how is the GMAC-RFC system going to work on this basis? Will it just use electronically generated comparables? If so, this might not be fair on well-maintained houses and may be a possible benefit for the poorly maintained properties – perhaps GMAC-RFC too will down-value as a matter of course?
I think it may be a secret Gordon Brown instruction to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to down-value all existing property to stop the market from overheating, but new builds are okay to value upwards because half of the government have shares in building companies. Just how is it that all new builds are valued at the purchase price, but most existing property is down-valued? Many of the older properties are more sound than the boxes currently being thrown up by builders, and certainly better than the ‘prison’-like balcony flats being erected on every available spare piece of land.
So, GMAC-RFC, where do you stand on ‘true’ valuations? And RICS, how do you stand on a ‘genuine’ valuation without the support of the ‘unqualified’, bearing in mind who has paid the valuation fee?
Rick Gifford
The-mortgage-broker.com
